CASBAA has urged Hong Kong's legislature to pass proposed amendments to the Copyright Ordinance that would bring digital copyright principles to Hong Kong for the first time.
The industry body representing APAC's digital TV and content sectors has argued that the proposed changes are crucial to the future of the local content industries.
CASBAA chief policy officer John Medeiros said provisions to bring the SAR's copyright legislation into the digital era have been under debate for more than a decade.
“Hong Kong’s IP law is in dire need of updating in order to take account of legal and illegal digital distribution of copyrighted materials, including entire online packages of pirated pay-TV programming,” he said.
“While the laws are delayed, online piracy has flourished. The lack of good laws in Hong Kong is causing huge damage to the creative industry. It is not theoretical; real jobs are being lost.”
The legislature will this week consider a series of more than 900 amendments to the proposed new law, but CASBAA is warning that these amendments would weaken the bill, which it says already does not provide strong enough protection for copyrighted broadcasts.
The netizen lobby is also pushing to defeat the bill if its preferred amendments are not included, dubbing the bill an Internet Article 23.
“This nickname has become a distraction to the deliberation of the real issues in the bill,” Medeiros said. “Good copyright laws exist in all of the world’s leading democracies, and there is no contradiction between protecting creation of quality video programming and basic civil rights.”